Yohji Yamamoto

Yohji Yamamoto

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For a designer of such imposing stature, Yohji Yamamoto is amazingly playful. He's a master tailor, yes, but that skill is often put to work conjuring up wildly avant-garde silhouettes that conceal the wearer's form, creating a new shape altogether. And yes, much of his lineup might be done in his favorite color, black, but the sobriety is usually interrupted by shots of ultrabrights.

Constantly exploring the relationship between the masculine and the feminine, Yamamoto makes clothes for women with an artistic or intellectual bent. Raised by his mother, a self-employed seamstress working in postwar Japan, Yamamoto arrived at fashion after studying law at Keio University. In 1969, at the age of 26, he also got a degree in design from Bunkafukuso Gakuin, Tokyo's esteemed fashion training ground. For the next several years he worked out of the back of his mother's shop, and in 1977 showed his first collection in Tokyo, under the name Y's. In 1981, he moved his presentations to Paris; he accepted France's Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1994.

Yamamoto also plays surprisingly well with others. In 2002 he embarked on a successful partnership with Adidas, launching the popular Y-3 brand. He has dabbled in film and opera costume, too, and collaborated on ethereal pearl jewelry with Mikimoto, must-have handbags with Hermès, and onstage outfits for his friend Elton John.

Junya Watanabe

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"Innovative," "cerebral," and "avant-garde" are descriptors routinely applied to Junya Watanabe's technically brilliant creations. A protégé of Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, the Japanese designer experiments with cutting-edge fabrics and inventive tailoring and draping. He tends to explore a single motif each season, deconstructing and then reconstructing one lone concept. Edwardian evening gowns derived from a material resembling puffy nylon sleeping bags will dominate one collection; the next may bring a meditation on the army jacket, reworked into trenches, parkas, and tailcoats or a floaty gray jersey dress of such complex draping that a woman would need an instruction manual just to get into it. The technical wizardry is also on display in Watanabe's unexpected placement of seams and zippers-sometimes backwards, sometimes winding sinuously about a garment. However "challenging" his shows are, though, they are never boring; they give critics something to really sink their teeth into.

After graduating from Bunka Fashion College in 1984, Watanabe began working for Kawakubo. In 1992, she offered him the chance to design his own collection under the Comme des Garçons umbrella. In 2000, Watanabe debuted a men's line, too.

Though he is famous for his cryptic statements to journalists ("Anti. Anarchy. Army," he declared to the audience after one military-inspired show), he has revealed some startling bits about his relationship with Kawakubo over the years. In the more than two decades they have known one another, his mentor has never praised him or offered him design direction. "Sometimes, I would like a little more feedback," he told Vogue in 2006. "Criticism would be better than silence."

Alexander McQueen

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The British designer Alexander McQueen provokes emotional reactions-extreme ones. One season, his audience sheds tears of frustration over his inhospitable choice of venue; the next, tears of joy over the haunting beauty of both the clothes and the staging. Though he's close to 40, the controversial McQueen is hardly ever written about without the phrase "enfant terrible" following his name. And yet, despite the perennial bad-boy tag, he's won all the big awards given out in London and was even honored by Queen Elizabeth as a Commander of the British Empire in 2003.

Theatricality is the name of McQueen's game-from romantic, corseted silhouettes to gobsmacking gowns created from feathers or, say, fresh flowers-but his grand gestures are backed up by incredible attention to detail and tailoring. He was born in 1969 in the East End, the son of a London cabbie. At 16, he began work as an apprentice cutter on Savile Row, where, according to a story too delicious not to be believed, he graffitied obscenities into the linings of suits intended for the Prince of Wales. After a brief sojourn in Milan cutting patterns for Romeo Gigli, McQueen enrolled at Central Saint Martins. In 1994, his graduate collection caught the eye of the late fashion stylist Isabella Blow, who purchased it for $7,750 and became his champion. The following year, McQueen cemented his rising-star status with the hackle-raising Highland Rape collection, which featured tattered dresses, bloodstained models, and his notoriously low-cut "bumster" pants. In 1996, Givenchy came calling, installing McQueen as chief designer. But his reign there was a tumultuous one: It ended in 2001, a few months after the Gucci Group bought a 51 percent stake in his own label. McQueen has since expanded into menswear, accessories, fragrance, and eyewear, and he has launched a second line, McQ. His Spring 2008 show was a tribute to his mentor, Issy Blow, who died in May 2007.